


Building Jumper, Roof to Roof

by Sylvia_Locust



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Harm to Children, Head Injury, Illnesses, Unconsciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-03 23:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvia_Locust/pseuds/Sylvia_Locust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are bad ways and there are worse ways to tell your brother you have cancer. And then there's the Winchester way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Building Jumper, Roof to Roof

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Postage-Stamp February Amnesty challenge at hc_bingo. Prompts were unconscioiusness + group support + major illness + wildcard (head trauma). A sequel to Break My Body, Hold My Bones.

Sam supposed there were bad ways to tell your brother you were sick— _So, hey, I figured out why I’m so tired all the time, isn’t that great?_ —and there were worse ways— _So, hey, what are your feelings on chemo vs. radiation?_ And then there was the Winchester way, which was getting knocked unconscious by a poltergeist, coming around slowly in the back of the Chevy clutching your bloody noggin, and mumbling “Tha’ can’t be goo for my canssser.”

Just before he sank back down into the darkness again he heard Dean say "What!?" and thought, “Ohhhh, fuck.”

All of which probably explained why he was waking up in an ER instead of the Knotty Pines motel where he’d expected to come to, nursing a headache that could rival the psy-graines he used to get when Azazel was still whispering into his brain.

“Dean?” he asks, voice rough and throat scratchy. He still feels a little dazed from having his head pounded against a rotten bannister, but unfortunately, not so dazed that he forgot what he said, that he could pretend not to know why Dean’s glowering at him.

He tries anyway, for a little bit of time. “What happened?”

Dean folds his arms and leans back against the wall, unmindful of the equipment and wires running all over the small curtained exam room.

“Really, Sam? That’s how you’re gonna play this?”

"Yeah?" he mumbles hopefully just before closing his eyes again. Maybe the next time he wakes up he’ll have a better answer.

+++

Dean is probably angrier than he's ever been at Sam—angrier than the blood-dark Ruby days, angrier than when he realized Sam was running around banging all the brunettes in Rhode Island while Dean thought he was in the pit—so when Sam tries to pull the ignorance card Dean feels every soft tissue in his body crystallize with rage.

When the ER doc enters a couple of minutes later he's still vibrating with fury even though his brother seems to actually be down for the count at the moment and not just playing possum.

"Mr. Smith," the doctor says, and Dean's so angry he doesn't even check out how her ass looks in her scrubs.

"How sick is he?" Dean asks, and the doctor seems startled.

"He was admitted with head trauma, right?"

"He tripped and knocked his melon against a banister," Dean says, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. "But I think he might be sick. Like, really sick."

The doctors run some preliminary blood work and the results are grim enough to get Sam admitted, to get an oncologist brought on board "the team." There are scans and x-rays but Sam's barely conscious through any of it, waking up once in awhile to mumble nonsense or apologies to Dean before he's out again. As the hours pass by and Sam stays unconscious Dean's rage settles into another feeling he's much too well-acquainted with—terror.

The head wound was proving a bitch to treat, and Dr. Mistry told Dean they would need to get his brother stabilized and conscious before they could discuss treatment options. He seems reluctant to go into details with Dean until Sam’s conscious again, but Dean cajoles enough info from the doc to feel alternately heartsick and furious. It had come on quite suddenly, if the information coming in from the last hospital could be believed, and it was most commonly seen in teenagers ( _way to buck the odds there, Sammy,_ Dean thought darkly). If there is any hope of saving Sam's leg their best course of treatment involves major surgery followed by major physical therapy. The alternative is amputation.

Actually, the alternative is death, but Dean knows that already. Leave it to a Winchester. Decades of the occasional cough or sniffle, and when one of them finally gets sick, it's a fucking death sentence.

 _Our whole lives are a death sentence_ , he hears Sam's voice in his head. And Dean does not have the energy to argue with head-Sammy. He usually doesn’t.

He chases cup after cup of vending machine coffee, mouth set in a grim line. In his darkest moments he grudgingly understands why Sam might have preferred slipping away to cutting off a leg. Remembers how he’d been willing to let nature run its course when his heart had been fried, what now feels like several lifetimes ago.

 

+++

 

“I really don’t see what the problem is,” Sam says tiredly. He’s been arguing in circles with Dr. Mistry, who is stubborn enough to be an honorary Winchester in Sam’s expert opinion. “I don’t want to cut off my leg, and I don’t want radiation. I just want to leave.”

“As I said, there's still a chance we can save most of your leg. And you can’t possibly intend to leave. I don’t think you understand the gravity of your situation.”

“Look, Doc, I can’t be the first person who walked out of your hospital without getting treatment.”

Dr. Mistry folds his arms. “Maybe not, but you would certainly be one of the youngest.”

Sam snorts. On a good day he feels like he’s 200 years old which, metaphysically at least, he supposes he is.

When Sam had finally awoken two days ago Dean was gone.

“Said he went to find an angel,” according to Liam, the burly RN who was checking Sam’s vitals. “He doesn’t seem all that religious, but then, cancer does that to people sometimes.”

Sam had sighed and slumped against the thin pillows. He didn’t want an angel. He just wanted some peace.

Now Dean is who-knew-where trying to chase down Cas and Sam is stuck arguing with the most obstinate doctor he’s ever come across.

“I know my rights,” Sam says as he tries to ease off the bed without wincing. “I’m a grown man, I’m in my right mind, and I don’t even have insurance, for Christ’s sake. Just bring me the damn AMA form.”

Dr. Mistry’s brown eyes smile at that. “Aha, but are you in your right mind?” he asks, waving his clipboard at Sam. “Because I have a document here that says you walked out of a mental health facility in Indiana while you were still hollering at the devil.”

 _Son of a bitch_ , Sam thinks. “I had one _tiny_ little psychotic break, and that was ages ago. I’m obviously not a raving lunatic.”

“No,” Mistry agrees. “But this might buy me enough to time to make you see sense.”

He leaves the room while Sam is still scowling at his back.

+++

“This is low, even for Mistry,” Sam grumbles as Liam wheels him onto the pediatric ward and pushes him into an unobtrusive corner of the play room, painted in a stomach churning series of primary colors. A circle of chairs has been set up for the weekly support group for kids with cancer.

“What’s he doing here?” asks a querulous voice, and a girl around 12 stands up on thin legs to point a bony finger in Sam’s direction. He slumps as low as he can in his chair, wishing his leg felt well enough for him to walk out of here.

“That’s Sam. Can everybody say hi to Sam?” asks the group facilitator, a plump and smiling woman in her 40s with graying auburn hair. There’s a chorus of “Hi Sam!” and he can't remember the last time he felt like such a jackass.

Well, actually he can, which goes a long way to explaining his presence in this room.

“But he’s old!” says the girl.

“Blake, please sit down. Mr. Sam is just going to listen in for a while. He’s about to start his own cancer treatment and his doctor thought he could benefit from hearing your stories.”

Sam glances up when a nurse in purple lollipop scrubs sits down next to him.

“Why _are_ you here?” asks the nurse, Teri according to her nametag.

Sam sighs. “Dr. Mistry.”

“Ah. You’re the one.”

“What am I supposed to be getting from this again?” he asks, watching the children. “Because I feel like the biggest ass in the world right now. This is supposed to be for them, not me.”

In the circle Blake is still pitching a fit about Sam.

“I really don’t want to be here,” he says to Teri in a low voice. “Why can't I just leave instead of ruining that girl’s day?”

Teri settles back in the seat, trying to get comfortable in a chair that was built for a grade-schooler.

“Don’t mind her,” Teri says. “She used to be the sweetest thing, but the brain cancer has made her a little… angry.”

Sam sighs and closes his eyes. He opens them again and surveys the children in the circle, some smiling and some sullen, most of them missing large amounts of their hair. “What kind of odds are they looking at?”

“Honestly? Probably worse odds than yours.”

To his horror Sam feels tears prickle in his eyes. He doesn't think he's cried since the cage, when his eyes ran rivers of pain.

“I think Dr. Mistry hoped that—”

“I know what he hoped. Tell him it worked. Just, please, get me out of here.”

“Really?”

Sam glares at her. He tries to stand but his leg gives out and then she’s behind him with the wheelchair, guiding him back down till he's sitting again, his bad leg sticking out at an awkward angle.

“Where’s he going?” Sam hears Blake say behind him, sounding just as annoyed with his absence as she was with his presence.

“He’s going to get help, Blake. Let’s all say a prayer for Mr. Sam, okay?”

Sam’s eyes burn hot with unshed tears, for these kids, for his brother. For all the prayers ignored by the gods, all over the world.

For the chaos his continued existence seems to cause those around him.

But he lets Teri push him back towards his room, towards some faint possibility of healing, even if salvation remains out of reach.


End file.
